Iron Maiden Flies High in ‘Flight 666′

After a breath-taking career as one of the most important bands in heavy metal, Iron Maiden have released a movie, 'Iron Maiden: Flight 666,' theatrically on April 21. It's part-documentary, part-concert, part-in-flight entertainment and all Maiden, all of the time!

As for why Maiden would put out a movie at this point in their career, drummer Nicko McBrain told Noisecreep, after a relaxing round of golf in his native England, "We wanted to let fans live on the road with us. Then we were like, 'Wait a minute! We're private.' Fans see us on stage, and there is lots of documented strands on DVDs and stuff. But [manager] Rod [Smallwood] convinced us it would be best thing to do. It's not a music video, but there is live performance. It's a testament to our fans. The stars of the film are the fans. They are amazing. It portrays the passion that we get back from the fans."

McBrain said that the fans were also the impetus for Maiden documenting themselves flying from show to show, with frontman Bruce Dickinson piloting the planes, since he possesses a commercial pilot's license. "About four or five years ago, we were flying back to England after a show, discussing places we hadn't played, where wanted to go and places we have played, like Australia. We realized it was 12 years since our last show there. Bruce was telling us that it's too much money to get from A to B and that what we needed was our own airplane."

And with that, Maiden chartered their own plane, put 13 tons of gear underneath it and packed themselves, friends, crew and "other hooligans," according to McBrain, into a 757 for their 'Somewhere Back in Time' tour. McBrain said, "It was a historic event. No one has done this. Bands have flown with jets, but not with their equipment and crew! We did six continents in six weeks."